


Love Writ Large

by Lasgalendil



Series: Starlight and Song [22]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bearded Dwarf Women, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Gigolas - Freeform, Gigolas Week 3, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:05:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elf loves Dwarf.<br/>Dwarf loves Elf.</p><p>...wherein writing a love-letter goes disastrously wrong. But on the Smith's Day, it's the thought that counts!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Writ Large

_There is the forest river, the Dwarf sits, bathing, slowly undoing his hair. It is thick, red, bushy, so strange, so curious, so new! It is not smooth or sleek like my own—like any Elf’s—so unlike any hair I have seen. I should not look, I think, so uninvited. It is not right to look, to watch, to wonder, but I say he is not an Elf, it matters not—he cares not—that I should see him so. Why should Elbereth, why should Óli mind if I see his ears, his hair unbound? His hair! Oh, his hair! It curls, crinkles, catches the light, sometimes golden as grass in the autumn, sometimes rust as the leaves, sometimes rich, deep brown like earth. I wonder, I think—may I?—what it would be like to touch it?_  
  
_…I may not. I am an Elf. He is a Dwarf. A Firebeard. A Longbeard. I cannot Comb. Not him. Not ever._  
  
_Comb-mates. Married now. Married, I say it is so. And his hair—Ai, Óli, his hair! His beard!—is mine to Comb, to touch, to braid, to bury hands and fingers and face in! It is—_  
  
  
“Up, you lazy Elf!” my Gimli grunts. “It’s the Smith’s Day!” I wake. The sun is not yet up. The stars still sing in the sky, and the birds are still sleeping.

  
  
[As should my Dwarf!]

  
“So it is the Smith’s Day,” I argue (we are always arguing. It is, I have learned, how a Dwarf says ‘I love you’). “And I am not lazy, you were the one who was asleep. I have combed you for hours awake and have only stopped to revel, yet you say to me I am lazy. I am not lazy—I am an Elf.”

  
  
[And you have woken me from such pleasant memory!]  
[I would have it again, while waking.]

  
“Mahal-damned creature,” my Gimli kisses me. “Up!”  
“No,” I pull the blankets back over my face, nestle into the space where he was resting, where the forge of his heart has kept him warm. “No, I do not wish to.”  
“Bloody, fucking Elf! Up! Out of bed!” he tries to wrest my covers away. “It’s the Smith’s Day!”

  
  
[So you have said.]

  
“So it is the Smith’s Day,” I tell him. “You are a Dwarf. I am an Elf.”  
“Aye, you Mahal-damned creature. Now up! I need your help!”  
It is—and I am sorry, my Seven Stars—most unlike you to rouse me.

  
  
[For anything but your fucking.]

  
And if—if!—you are to rouse me so rudely from this warm bed, well. There must be Combing.

  
[I insist on it.]  
[…I do not think it will be so difficult.]

  
“It is not the Smith’s Day,” I tell him. “It is the Smith’s _Night_ , perhaps, and this Elf would like to revel. You may hold me, if you wish to, but it is night, and I would revel.”  
  
But my love is unmoved. “Mahal-damnit, Elf, I need your help!” He says, pulling a pile of—things, bits, stuff, I never know—out of the chest at the foot? of our bed. “Up, up, out of bed! It’s the Smith’s Day!” And oh, my Dwarf, this is not fair! You know I am an Elf, I am curious! I want to Comb you, be Combed by you, want your hands in my hair, your lips, your breath, your teeth against my ears! But here  is something interesting, something new, and I am torn!  
  
“The Smith’s Day?” I ask him, sitting up.

  
  
[He has—he thinks—won.]  
[For awhile, perhaps.]

  
“Yes, yes, the Smith’s Day, you bloody, fucking Elf. When Durin-to-come visits Dwarf children everywhere and leaves gifts from Mahal under their beds.”  
  
“That…really?” I lean forward, let the covers fall. Is such a thing possible? How strange!

  
  
[But I am not a Dwarf. How should an Elf know?]

  
“No, you stupid, sodding Elf,” he crosses his across his stout chest, his beard. “Durin doesn’t, I do! Or at least their parents should, but they’re not bloody here, are they? So help me!” And yes, yes there are seven. Seven presents which he has concealed away from their prying eyes.  
  
“But—“ I bite my lips as he frowns.  
“But what, you stupid, sodding Elf?”

  
  
[This is also, I have learned, how a Dwarf says ‘I love you’.]

  
  
“But if it is you—if it is parents?—then why call it the Smith’s Day at all?” I wonder. “Why say that Durin-to-come brings presents?”  
  
“Mahal-damnit it, Elf! Do I question you on everything?” he huffs. “Just get up! Get dressed!”

  
  
[Well.]  
[This is different.]

  
  
…and the answer, my love, is yes. Yes you do. You complain about Combing, about cuddling, about my singing: “Why must you sing, you Mahal-damned creature? Must you place your cold feet on my fucking arse? Mahal-damnit, Elf, your hair is already Combed I won’t Comb you again this night—and get your bloody, fucking fingers out of my beard and let me sleep!”  
  
“It has to be you, Elf,” he insists, “Mzisi will hear me.” Our little Blacklock. He says she has Elven-ears. They are good—but not Elven!  
“What do I do?” I ask, shaken. I have never been Durin—or Óli!—before!  
“You put the Mahal-damned presents under their beds,” he says. “Now go, before they wake!”  
“But—“  
He sighs. Places his bare forehead into his hands, tears at his brows. “But what, you stupid Elf?”  
“Where?”  
“Mahal-damnit, Elf! Weren’t you listening? Under their beds!”  
“No, no, my Gimli—I listened very well, the fault is not mine—but you never said—never told me—I do not think—where do they go?”  
  
“Durin’s saggy left ball, Elf. Seven presents for seven pages! Can you really not tell, Elf? Look!”  
  
…it is a—thing? Of wood. All wood. With pegs.  I do not know. Do not wish to tell him so, not with him frowning so at me, with him already being so impatient.  
  
“Oh. Of course.” I say. And hand it back.  
“…Elf,” my Gimli grunts. “You have no fucking clue, do you?”  
  
I have no clues at all, my love. Not even fucking ones. “What is it?”  
“It’s a loom, Mahal-damnit. For weaving.”  
Oh. Oh yes, now I see. “For Rotha.”  
“Yes. And this is—“  
“An ax. For Olavur.”  
“For Balin, actually,” he grunts. “Good guess. This one is for Olavur,” he hefts a sharp sword of steel and leather up.  
“But—“  
“But what, you stupid, fucking Elf?”

  
[I love you.]  
[It means ‘I love you’.]

  
“But Olavur has an ax.”  
“I know. And he bloody well needs to learn to use a sword. This one—“  
Shoes. White calf-skin and silk, beaded with glass.They are so small! “Yi?” I ask.  
He nods. “And this?”  
They look, well. I don’t know. Like small sticks? “Kindling?” I ask him.  
“It’s a pen, Mahal-damnit. And brushes. For Na’il.”  
“Oh.”

  
[How should I know, my love? I neither read nor write. You know this!]

  
“And this?” I ask him, holding it up. It is carved, carved to look like some creature or other. I do not know it—there is so much of this wide world I yet do not know.

  
[So much I wish to see before I go.]  
[So much I know we never will.]

 

I don’t know this creature with its wings and beak and feet like a wild cat, some creature like an Oliphant from the far East or South. But I am a hunter, and the stone is familiar, though different in color than I have ever seen. “A—whetstone.”  Then, “Mzisi?”  
  
“Very good, Elf,” he lays a hasty, bearded kiss against my cheek. “Now hurry before they wake!”

* * *

Mzisi is here. So is Yi.  
  
And Rotha.  
  
…and Na’il.  
  
And Balin. And Olavur.  
  
And…the other one. Page?

  
[I forget.]  
[I shouldn’t.]  
[But he so rarely speaks to me.]  
[And he doesn’t have a name!]  
[At least one he will tell me.]

  
  
“Amahle,” she says. “It is the Smith's Day.”  
“Nimir, nimir!” Yi sings. “It’s the Smith's Day!”  
“Yes?”  
“And—“  
They all nod.  
“And what?” I ask her, startled.  
“And it is Smith's Day. It is known.”  
“Yes?”  
“And we are your pages?”  
“Yes?”  
“And we have not seen you make Lord Gimli anything.”  
“Did you make Lord Gimli something?” Yi wonders.  
“It is the Smith’s Day,” Mzisi insists, head bobbing and her red-clay braids and beard tinkling. “It is what you do!”  
  
I—oh. I do not know what to say. I am not a Dwarf! But I must say something, it seems. They are all still staring!  “I thought—Durin? And—and Mahal?” I ask them. “That he made presents.”  
“Don’t be silly, Nimir!” Mzisi scolds.  
“That’s silly, Nimir!” Yi chimes.  
“Durin doesn’t bring presents!” she insists.  
“…he doesn’t?”  
“No! It is parents! Parents and now Lord Gimli!”

  
  
[I helped too, little one!]

  
  
“You…know?” I ask them.  
“Amahle—everyone knows!”  Mzisi tells me.  
“We’re not dwarrowlings, Nimir!” Yi pouts, then puffs her thin beard up. “We’re pages!”  
“This one agrees,” Mzisi says. “Only dwarrowlings believe in Durin.”

  
[Then what, my little one, does that make me?]

  
“Amahle, we are here to ask you, what have you made Lord Gimli?”  
“I—“ I feel my ears flush.  
“Forgive this one, but do you mean you didn’t?”  
“Why?” Yi wails, and tugs at my sleeves. “I thought you loved Lord Gimli!”  
  
A present. For the Smith’s Day. He hasn’t told me, hasn’t given me time—I have nothing to make, nothing to give! I am an Elf, a Wood-Elf in a city of Men—how am I to gift him?  
  
“I have—money?” I ask them all. “For spending. On things? He says. I never use it—“

  
  
[I don’t understand it.]  
[How is this ‘coin’ ‘worth’ anything?]  
[How can one ‘buy’ something?]  
[Why can they not be content to trade?]

  
—I can buy him a present?”  
  
They gasp.  
“You cannot buy a present!” Yi squeals. “Nimir! You must make it!”  
“Not for the Smith’s Day!”  
“Bloody, fucking Elf,” Balin huffs. “Doesn’t know anything.”  
“Amahle, forgive this one, but it is known! A present must be made!”  
“Aye,” Olavur grunts. “You can’t shame Mahal!”  
  
He never said—never told me—how was I to know—he said Durin, and Mahal, and he is a Dwarf, I am an Elf, and it is not fair, not fair at all, my Seven Stars, that not to make a gift, not to give a gift is not to love you when you have not told me! Must everything I learn of you and yours come from the mouth of these children?  
  
Oh, my Dwarf! What am I to make you? I am an Elf. A Wood-Elf. I do not make Combs for your hair, my love. I use my fingers, my hands, my lips. What use have you for arrows? Knives of bone or horn? You are a Dwarf. You have surrounded yourself with the works of your hands. I own nothing, am nothing, can make you nothing you do not have, nothing you could want.

* * *

“I can teach you to weave, to sprang, to knit!” Rotha says. “Or to make lace!”  
“What do we need?”  
“Sheep.”  
“Sheep?”  
“Yes. First you must get the sheep. Then you can get the wool. Then we can clean it and card it and dye it. Then we can weave, or sprang. Or knit! Weaving is easiest. You should weave!”  
  
“Rotha, there are no sheep,” Mzisi says. “Forgive this one, but this idea is stupid.”  
“There is no time for sheep,” Yi agrees.  
“No time for sheep,” Mzisi insists. “Instead, you need a cow!”  
“A cow?” Rotha asks. “How do you weave with a cow?”  
“You do not weave,” Mzisi rolls her white eyes. “You milk! Then we can make butter. You mix it with clay and then you have otjize. For hair. And skin. And beards! It is known!”  
“Gimli is a Longbeard,” Rotha says.  
“Firebeard!” Olavur growls.  
“Both,” Rotha rolls their eyes. “Not a Blacklock. He doesn’t need otjize!”  
“They are right,” Yi agrees timidly, bowing to Mzisi. “His hair is red already.”  
  
“Rubbish,” Balin says, putting down his pipe. “Gimli doesn’t want a fucking scarf or some dumb pot of clay for Durin’s Day.”  
“You should make an axe!” Olavur says. “We’ll need a forge!”  
“Nimir can’t forge!” Yi insists.  
“Nimir doesn’t know how to make an axe!” Rotha says.  
“We can teach him!” he insists.  
“There’s no time for a forge or axe!” Rotha argues.  
  
“But he has to make something!” Yi cries. “He can’t not give Lord Gimli anything!”  
  
  
“A letter,” Na’il says.  
“What?” asks Mzisi.  
“Words. Nimir will write words. He will make paper, ink, and letters.”  
“Is it…enough?” Mzisi wrinkles her wide nose.  
“It is enough!” Na’il insists.  
“There is no time for paper!” Olavur says.  
“Nimir can’t cut trees!” Yi wails. “He is Nimir!”  
“And he has no axe!” Olavur grunts.  
“Nimir has animal skins. We’ll use those.”  
  
“I—Na’il…I do not write.”  
“You are an Elf. know the Elf script, at least” he argues.  
No. No little one. No I don’t. “Those—“

  
  
[Those were Feanor’s letters.]  
[I cannot—I will not!—write with those.]  
[Even if I knew them. I would not write!]  
[…Not even for my Dwarf.]

  
“I do not.”  
“You don’t—?” Na’il wonders. “Why?”  
“I—“ it is a long story. Too long. Full of hurt and sorrow. I would not burden you with it, little one. You are still so young and unafraid.  I swallow, and my throat is thick. “I do not write.”  
  
  
“This one agrees with you,” Mzisi scoffs. “Writing is for the weak-minded!”  
“Not at all?” Yi squeaks. “Not even a little bit?”  
“Bloody, fucking Elves…” Balin says. “What use are you, anyways?”

  
  
[I should say something.]  
[I ought, my Gimli says.]  
[He is not to talk back to me, to us.]  
[But my love he is so young. Must you always be so unkind? Cannot an Elfling—a Drawling—say or think what he will?]

  
  
“Then we will teach you to write,” Na’il insists. “And you will write Zirak Gimli a letter with your words for the Smith’s Day.”  
  
“Na'il, forgive this one,”Mzisi says. “But this idea is stupid.”

* * *

MANY AGONIZING HOURS LATER...

“Amahle, Nimir, Na'il...forgive this one, but this idea is _hopeless_.”

* * *

Elf singing. Elf smiling. Elf sprawled naked in the middle of our bed, hair unbound, ears flushing pink.

  
[…Well.]  
[This is new.]

  
He has even—Mahal’s great cock!—he has even set out his jade comb and the hithlain rope I have made for him!

  
[For us.]

  
Elf throws back hair. Kicks feet. Far too pleased with himself! “What is it, you Mahal-damned creature?” I ask.  
“It’s Durin’s Day!” he sings.  
  
“Aye,” I grunt. Sit on the bedside. Unlace my boots. “Aye, it’s Durin’s Day.” And what, my love, could you have possibly made me?

  
[Other than a Mahal-damned arrow or bone knife?]

And here, underneath his comb and rope, on a dried rabbit skin, there are words mixture of his Sindarin and Westron, written in Cirth, runes, scripts of southron and easterling, upside down, backwards, reversed, scrawled in the wrong direction is the following:  
  
  
_SP ?neemoC_  
_Lv  yu._  
_Siht tah I_  
_I lv uy_  
_irt lliw I?_  
_loveen eetch odhr!_  
_frawDd na flE na kil_  
_it maks no sens at all_  
_drah os is neetir_  
_I lv yu but_

  
  
I stare.

  
[For a long, long time.]

  
  
“You—you like it?” he crawls across the bed to me, hesitant.  
“Like it, you stupid, sodding Elf?” I grab him by his flushed ears and kiss him. “I bloody, fucking love it!”

* * *

Although his father is Sindar, Legolas identifies as a Wood-Elf, going so far as to change his name (Laegolas is Sindarin, but contains a diphthong the Wood-Elves can’t pronounce, hence Legolas). The Sindar, Nandor, and Avari would not speak Quenya due to the ban imposed by Elu Thingol, and by extension would not have used the Feanorian characters. [And the Tawarwaith or Silvan Elves of Mirkwood would not have even heard of the Feanorians until the fall of Beleriand and the migration of the Elves of Doriath to their forest!] For instance, at the doors of Moria, Legolas recognizes the Trees of the High Elves (Noldor), but fails to grasp an obvious pun in Sindarin (in Beleriand mode tengwar) when the answer is written in stone right in front of him.  
  
Frodo, as a scholar of Elvish, cannot read the words at first (due to Beleriand mode having gone out of use in the third age). However, Beleriand mode Tengwar would have been the mode most common in Doriath had it been used, where Oropher and Thranduil (and possibly Legolas, although it is much more likely he was born in Mirkwood or along the journey) had lived. If this script had been used by Thranduil’s people at all, Legolas would have at least recognized it.  
  
Merry asks “what does it mean by ‘speak, friend, and enter’”, and Gandalf later says he was the one on the right track. The inscription lacks commas. This is not a direct address, not “speak, friend, and enter”, but rather an imperative “speak ‘friend’ and enter”.  
  
So Legolas doesn’t read or write in tengwar, at least in the books!  
  
Many ancient scripts could be written left to right OR right to left, depending on the handed-ness of the writer, and only became standardized in one direction over time. Some scripts used ‘ox-turns’ or Boustrophedon, where at the end of a line the script reversed itself and the eyes followed from right to left, or left to right, on every other line. The Elves are likely ambidextrous, so Boustrophedon would make sense for them, switching between hands. We don’t have any written record of any Southron or Easterling scripts, so I thought it would be fun to speculate.  
  
What if Msizi (who speaks Zulu, a Bantu language standing in for a Southron dialect) used oral traditions, songs, dance, and art to pass on her cultural heritage and had no writing system?

  
What if Na’il (who speaks Arabic, a semitic language standing in for a Near Harad dialect), knew arabic or Hebrew lettering? Which is written right to left?

  
What if Yi (who speaks multiple mutually unintelligible dialects of Chinese, standing in for the Easterling languages and dialects) knew oracle bone script, seal script, etc.? Which can be written right to left, top to bottom?

  
What if Rotha only knew a system of ‘writing’ involving knots on rope, like Quipu, the Incan system made with llama fiber?

  
What if Olavur’s clan refused to use Cirth after the Firebeards were killed in Doriath and developed their own form of writing?

  
...Page isn’t telling.  
  
I love you but  
writing is so hard  
it makes no sense at all  
like an Elf and Dwarf  
Loving each other  
I will try?  
I hate this  
I love you  
PS Combing?  
  
Now imagine the seven of them all teaching an illiterate Elf how to write a love letter in five hours or less, and poor Gimli having to sort it all out :)

**Author's Note:**

> Amahle (Zulu): Beautiful One
> 
> Nimir (Adunâic) Beautiful One, the Numeanorian’s word for Elf.


End file.
